Restoration

We are very pleased to announce that the multi-year effort to survey and score our region's road-stream crossings based on design criteria for fish and wildlife is complete. The project report summarizes the results from analysis of over 700 culverts and bridges located throughout the 258 square mile PIE-Rivers Region. This project simply would not have happened without an enormous amount of…

My name is Emily Korman, and I am a senior at Boston University, studying Environmental Analysis and Policy with a minor in Earth Science. I work alongside Cassie Traggert as a Field Crew Leader for the Ipswich River Watershed Association, which was generously made possible by a grant from the ALCES Foundation and donations honoring long-time Executive Director and River…

My name is Shannon Gentile and I’m a junior at Boston College studying environmental geoscience and general education. This summer I’ve been volunteering at the Ipswich River Watershed Association. After having learned about watersheds at school, I was eager to learn about the watershed I grew up in: the Ipswich River Watershed. I can recall spotting a barred owl flying…

I started working with the Ipswich River Watershed Association when they moved their offices to Riverbend right near my house while I was in high school. I grew up enjoying all the canoeing, swimming, and exploring the Ipswich River has to offer, so when the opportunity arose to give something back, I jumped on the chance. As a Field Crew…

Earlier this year our staff helped develop two separate grant proposals to the Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency Competitive Grant Program. This funding opportunity, administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), was seeking projects that would help protect human communities from future extreme weather events while benefiting the environment. One proposal, submitted by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), addresses a…

On May 7th the New York Times published an opinion piece highlighting the public safety risks and ecological harm caused by outdated, “deadbeat” dams. The article, written by Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, puts a spotlight on the growing river restoration movement focused on removing dams that do more harm than good. We were very encouraged to see river restoration get some…

Interest in river restoration has grown exponentially over the last decade in Massachusetts. Beth Lambert from the MA Division of Ecological Restoration will discuss river ecology; describe how dams impact river ecosystems; and share examples of dam removal projects in the Ipswich River watershed and around the state. Beth Lambert manages the Aquatic Habitat Restoration Program for the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration,…

We are pleased to report that we recently were awarded one of the largest grants in our history - $100,000 from the Jesse B. Cox Charitable Trust. The grant will support the work of the Parker-Ipswich-Essex (PIE) Rivers Restoration Partnership (pie-rivers.org) for the next two years. We created PIE-Rivers in 2010 to bring together all the organizations working to restore the…

This 11X7 elliptical culvert has replaced two 3 foot diameter culverts installed at the entrance to Lockwood Forest in Boxford. The old culverts failed to allow floods to pass and blocked fish and wildlife passage. The new culvert is embedded into the stream bottom by 18 inches to allow for the creation of a natural stream bottom with banks. And…

As paddlers and fishermen, swimmers and hikers, we experience the Ipswich River as a series of disconnected bodies of water, separated by dams that once served an important economic purpose, but no longer do. Few paddlers get to explore the section between the upper and middle stretches of the Ipswich River because there is no public access around the South…